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Verizon Activated 6.2 Million iPhones in Q4, Almost Half Were iPhone 5

We just got our first glimpse at iPhone 5 sales for the fourth quarter.

Verizon revealed during its earnings call Tuesday that it activated 6.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, almost half of which were LTE-enabled iPhone 5 devices. That means Verizon sold about 3 million iPhone 5s in the December quarter, up from 651,000 in the previous quarter (when the device had only been on sale for nine days).

In total, the carrier activated 9.8 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, a new record for quarterly smartphone activations. In a pre-earnings estimate earlier this month, Verizon credited the higher number of activations to a "higher mix of Apple smartphones."

Despite the record number of activations, Verizon reported a whopping $1.93 billion loss for the fourth quarter due to charges incurred from pensions and Hurricane Sandy.

AT&T and Sprint haven't reported their iPhone sales figures yet, though AT&T did reveal that it too had a record quarter for smartphone sales — with 10 million smartphone activations — which many assume is due to demand for the new iPhone. Apple's earnings report for the December quarter will be released on Wednesday.

Apple's stock was up by about half a percent pre-market following the positive iPhone sales figures.

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